TURKEY DAY 7: NEMRUT DAGI - GAZIANTEP

So this was it, off on a wing and a prayer to Nemrut Dagi about 3 hours away in the hope of finding the elusive Kurdish Wheatear. We arrived on site at 8.45am after a relatively straightforward 3 hour drive, at 2034m, in the most spectacular scenery of the tour. 

There's Kurdish Wheatear up there.....

And on this, our 3^rd attempt at this species, we nailed it within 10 minutes of arrival…! Oh yes baby!  A pair were present on the rocky mountainside opposite exactly where we were parked and were on view for the next hour and we even ate our breakfast and enjoyed a cup of coffee with the pair on show the whole time. 

The one and only Kurdish Wheatear

Once we were done here, we drove lower down and pretty quickly found a Sombre Tit beside the road that also gave cracking views and White-throated Robin was also extremely obliging and sang from several different spots right in front of us at the same location. What a bird! 

White-throated Robin

And also an Upcher’s Warbler showed quite well here too and a Woodchat Shrike was sat on a nest. We drove a little lower again, just a few minutes drive down the road and found another pair of Kurdish Wheatears another yet another Upcher’s Warbler. 

The gang in action

With our main targets under the belt we decided to head on up to the summit where the temperature was much cooler. And I mean, much cooler, with a strong wind blowing! We bought tickets at the Visitor Centre before driving to the summit car park where a singing Cinereous Bunting simply ignored us, and Horned Lark and Northern Wheatear were also present. It looked like quite a hike up to the very top where the archaeological site is located and the prospect of a lung-busting walk in the cold wind to view some stone heads wasn’t too appealing to me. And fortunately the same was felt by everyone else!! I am culturally shallow and it must have rubbed off on everyone else!!

The view from Nemrut Dagi

So it was late morning by now and we headed to another special site that took a further2 hours to reach in the lowlands. Further wonderful scenery ensued and we ended up amidst a rolling landscape of arable fields and where the roadside verges were full of wild flowers. It was a little bit like stepping back in time into an England from the 1950’s, with large fields full of crops and birds singing erywhere – as opposed to the sterile agricultural landscape we see today. As we approached the site Black-winged Kite and Corn Buntings were seen, several European Rollers were on the wires, and then we spotted two species of bee-eater as well…... And then on to the main event and one of the top highlights of the tour – a Blue-cheeked Bee-eater colony on the side of an isolated small hillock. 

The bee-eater colony was on this small hill

A close flyover

Some phonescoped images....

And what an awesome experience seeing the comings & goings of 100-150 bee-eaters at their nesting site on this small hill. The noise and spectacle of seeing these beautiful birds was unbelievable, and there was even a couple pairs of European Bee-eaters present too. We marvelled at them through the scope and many, many photos and videos were taken, as you can imagine in the stunningly crisp late afternoon sunshine. We had to literally drag ourselves away from this mouth-watering avian feast to drive the 2 hours to our next hotel in Gaziantep, near the old town.